So, did you have fun? See any polar bears? Worth the trip?
Internet is still spotty, but all in all, I enjoyed it. No polar bears sighted—a good thing since I was out biking on my own all three days in Churchill. Did 30 miles, round trip, right down “polar bear alley” on day two. All on a little folding bike that struggled to break 10 mph going into a stiff breeze on level terrain, maybe 14 mph downwind or downhill (at which point control became a concern).
I did see a lot of beluga whales, though, if that’s your thing.
@ASL_v2.0 , you didn’t tell us about your Churchill-to-Winnipeg trip. Did you stock up with supplies in Churchill? Did you order pizza in Thompson? Did you get into Winnipeg on time?
Although I’m considering Winnipeg-Churchill return next year, I’d like to know your impressions of Via on this trip. As you know, I’m considering Toronto-Vancouver this year, and I’d like to hear experiences.
Well, on the one hand, Churchill’s main store was better provisioned than I expected. But it was expensive. Think close to $8 for a 2-Liter bottle of coke. So I did not “re-provision” there as I did not need to. I had what I needed from Thompson.
And that was the hardest thing about the train trip either direction, which is I think unique to the remote routes, and wouldn’t be an issue on an east-west or west-east route through southern Canada: no regular meal service. The return trip is further complicated as much less time is planned in Thompson on the way back. We were, I think, an hour late getting to Thompson both times, but that hour was not as sorely needed on the way to Churchill because it was planned as something like a 5-hour stop (reduced to 4). By contrast, the return was scheduled for a 2.5-hour stop, reduced to 1.5 by the delay, and effectively cut down to 1-hour by the staff who were, I suspect, worried about people planning to show up last minute and then missing (or further delaying) the train.
Anyway, I was still able to cover plenty of ground in Thompson part 2 thanks to my folding bike, but I imagine the foot-bound would have had maybe just enough time to make it to Walmart and back (with a few minutes in between for shopping), assuming they didn’t have any mobility limitations. I did not get pizza in Thompson because (1) I did not want it and (2) I did not need my food to be delivered. Instead, I put in a 7-mile bike ride (would have liked to do more, but not enough time), restocked at Walmart, and closed out by getting some fast food to go, which I then enjoyed on the train.
There is/was a longer stop on the return trip in The Pas as well (it ended up being 3.5 or 4 hours) but that was from something like 11 PM to 3 AM and I doubt anything was open. I was also led to believe that biking in The Pas at night might be unsafe, but maybe that was just the attendant signaling he didn’t plan to be awake to admit passengers at random hours of the night. In any event, I did not bike in The Pas and have only vague memories of waking up for a few minutes there before drifting off sleep again.
The train arrived about an hour late to Winnipeg which (1) I am told is not unusual and (2) is perfectly fine by me, all things considered, and probably better than Amtrak on an equivalent route. One thing I noticed, contrasted against Amtrak, is that this train did not spend any considerable amount of time stopped and waiting for freight trains to pass by. Whether that’s due to less freight traffic on less densely populated routes, greater capacity, blind luck, or stricter adherence to (as we have in the US, but which industry quite infamously routinely violates and is never held to account for) regulations requiring freight traffic to give way to passenger service, I don’t know.
way cool!
Thanks, @ASL_v2.0 for the report on the return trip. Bringing that bike was a great idea.
Surprised at the lack of food service. Well, maybe not so much of a lack, because there were obviously some offerings available, but surely Via could find some middle ground between “full-blown dining car and kitchen” and “microwaveable gas station sandwiches.” I don’t know what that would be—airline meals, perhaps?—but there must be something.
Yes, in Canada, freight traffic takes priority, and when I’ve ridden The Canadian and The Ocean, there were many times when we had to pull over to let a freight train pass. Corridor trains (Windsor-Toronto-Montreal-Quebec) are hardly bothered at all, since freights don’t use their route, but the long-distance trains will be. Maybe you got lucky, and there was little freight traffic that would demand that your train pull over.
Thanks again for a great report!
That’s more or less what Amtrak does on their Eastern routes. On Western routes they still have the full blown dining car and kitchen, what Amtrak calls “Traditional Dining”, but on routes in the East they do what they refer to as “Flexible Dining”, which is something sort of akin to an airline meal or microwavable TV dinner.